Paper Not Blood
by peetasbunmyoven
Summary: I throw my head back, my laugh short and bitter. "You know the best part? This…..it's not allowed. Divorce or not for three years you were my step sister! It doesn't matter that I didn't know you, that it's paper not blood, that we didn't grow up together, no matter what from the outside it's fucked up! It's so damn fucked up but I still can't help it!" Written for Round 5 PIP


Paper Not Blood

_**Day Eighteen**_

The water is hot, like needles pulsing and beading against my skin. With each breath steam fills my lungs and spins in my head. I'm panting hard, eyes shut tight, with my hand braced against the wall, and pulse beating in time with the rapid movement of my wrist. I have been doing this more and more. I can't seem to help it. The air is saturated with the smell of her vanilla soap. I taste it on my tongue. I imagine her standing here water streaming and parting down her body, her delicate fingers running along her skin.

Just minutes ago I felt my heart stop. I swung open the bathroom door catching us both by surprise. She gasped, and I stared. So much skin, flushed from heat, curved breasts pinched and shadowed beneath her towel, a bead of water from her dark waves running down her shoulder and collar bone before disappearing beneath the clean cotton. I wanted to follow it with my tongue. Her silver eyes were wide, innocent, filled with uncertainty and framed by dark spiky lashes. Eyes that make me feel like I'm fucking drowning. I wanted to watch them darken; make them roll back in her head. I wanted to rip that damn towel off her body and drop to my knees to see if she tastes as sweet as the soap she uses. Just the thought ends it for me. My stomach contracts, I groan into the spray, and watch my toes curl into the tile; watch as my release disappears down the drain.

I drag my hand across the steamy mirror, and reveal my face one angle at a time. This has to stop. I don't know what the hell is wrong with me. She's a sweet girl, and lately she's become a trusted friend. Someone I am able to confide in. I should have some fucking respect, and not jerk off to her like some horny fifteen year old just because I saw her in a towel! I let my head fall back and rub my hands roughly across my eyes. But Jesus she's gorgeous. My hands drop heavy to my sides. Gorgeous….and up until a few months ago you sick fuck she was technically your stepsister.

Throwing on a pair of jeans I try to remember more of that day. The wedding announcement was a surprise to me, the day a flurry of places to be and things to do. It was balmy and mild, just a few friends and family, soft spoken promises, and a red velvet cake I decorated myself. That's about all I recall. I suppose I didn't have it in me to pay much attention, or care really. I mean I was happy for my Dad; it was nice to see him thinking of himself for once and trying to put his life together.

But at eighteen my universe was small, self-centered. Boxes had already been packed, and mentally I was hundreds of miles away fulfilling as many clichés as possible. The few weeks between the wedding and looking at my childhood home in my rearview were a blur. The house I left was now full of women.

I had smile and charmed; all the things that have always come so easy when I met them for the first time?

Prim was sweet, golden with big blue eyes always shining and peaceful; but Katniss was like a shadow. Darker in color, quiet and with a veil of guarded sadness in her expressions. She wasn't much bigger than her sister though she must have been what fourteen…..almost fifteen at the time? I just remember knobby knees, a long braid, and that she seemed perpetually unhappy. I figured the change was hard on her and gave her space. To be honest I just didn't want to take the time to do much else. Once I left I saw her maybe twice a year, a handful of uncomfortable Christmas's, and a long weekend the summer after I left.

I loved the city, and being on my own. Finally I was free of all the shit that weighed me down, while I growing up. For the first time I felt like I could breathe. So the decision to stay at school during breaks was easy. I had no reason to look back when so much lay ahead.

Three years later they are getting divorced; it is for the best he tells me. Too many ghosts in one house. Prim and her mother are moving back home, and Dad says this is a good thing. When I ask about Katniss I set everything in motion. That one question becomes the catalyst that changes everything.

She's starting school. Here. In fact she's too proud to ask herself but she is looking for somewhere to stay until the dorms open up a month from now. I don't know where the offer comes from. Maybe my incessant need to be helpful, or my residual guilt that I haven't been around when my dad's life has been coming apart. Doesn't matter really, the second the offer passes my lips I can tell that it is what he is counting on. Besides it's a month. It will be strange since we hardly know each other, and she's my sister? No. Was my sister? Stepsister. Fuck it doesn't matter, being able to help lifts that residual pressure from my chest that I have somehow let my Dad down and that's good enough for me.

_**Day One**_

I'm not prepared though, to open the door and feel life punch me in the solar plexus. She's taller, not much but enough that her lean legs seem endless. Her thighs are tan and athletic disappearing beneath her denim shorts. Her hair falls past her shoulders shining and raven dark in the sun, brushing against the slight swell of her breasts. It's her face though that stops the air in my lungs, her face with wide eyes molten and gray, high cheekbones, and a full pink mouth that scowls at me.

Words never fail me. They materialize out of thin air anytime I need to turn a situation or moment in my favor. Yet here, on my doorstep…nothing. Just me, my open mouth, and seconds of excruciating silence where I think I make a sound in the back of my throat like I'm in pain. This is such a fucking bad idea.

I don't see it at the time, but on this sunny day, as she crosses the doorway with a tentative smile, I change. She changes me. In the minutes, hours, and days that follow, cracks that run deep beneath my skin begin to heal, and there is nothing I can do about it.

_**Day Three**_

She smiles today. Not the slight lift of lips, or determined line I'm used to seeing. This is new. It transforms her. Bright eyes, and full cheeks, a flash of straight white teeth flush against her wet pink lips taking my breath away.

It's Saturday, the one day of the week that my body will never let me sleep past dawn. I'm up to my forearms in flour, lulled into peace by the rhythm of my hands, and the hiss of coffee as it drips bitter and dark into the pot.

She surprises me, doesn't make a fucking sound when she walks. "Good morning."

Jumping slightly I spin around. "Hey…..did I wake you? Coffee?"

She drops her head slightly. Waves, the color of cocoa falling like a veil in front of her face. "No…thanks. What are you making?"

I watch her small fingers brush her hair behind her ear. I wonder if it feels as soft as it looks. Clearing my throat, I turn back to the counter and put the pan in the oven. "Cinnamon rolls… are you hungry?"

Her laugh is short and soft. "If you learn anything about me over the next few weeks it is that I am always hungry."

Standing and rubbing the sweat from my face, I turn and smile. "Well then I think we'll get along fine, besides old habits die hard and maybe I'll eat a few less sweets if someone is willing to share."

She's biting her lip and that's when it happens. She snorts, giggles and it's high pitched and ridiculously girly before her lips part into a smile so wide I can't help but feel my face return it. My cheeks actually hurt I'm grinning so hard.

Her head is thrown back before she points at me. "Ummm you have some…..…."

Her smile only grows as I wipe my cheeks, my nose, and chin coming no closer to cleaning the mess on my face then when I started. I feel a flush begin to crawl up my neck but freeze altogether when she leans forward across the counter, and slowly runs her thumb along my cheekbone.

"There, I got it." Her skin is cool against the heat of my face. Her breath warm against my cheek.

I can smell the mint of her toothpaste, and the vanilla on her skin. Her thumb and her laughter stills. I'm frozen in her gaze. It feels like I could fall into her dark eyes. Everything is so still, but seconds later she pulls away and I feel dizzy. I realize I've been holding my breath. It shakes out of my chest as she jumps from her stool and makes an excuse to leave the room.

I watch her go, slender shoulders in a tank top and baggy sweatpants. Leaning my hands onto the counter, I close my eyes and whisper roughly into the room, "I am so fucked."

_**Day Seven**_

She's easy to talk to. There is a peace to her silence, her stillness. At first I thought she might be unfriendly, guarded in a way that you can't penetrate. It's not true though. She's just careful, she takes her time; be it to speak, to smile, to let you see who she is. It makes me desperate to know her. With me lying on the couch, and her stretched across the floor on her stomach, we talk. Well mostly I talk. She listens, and doesn't seem to mind. With her head pillowed on her arms, she smiles at my stories, and furrows her brow if the subject turns serious.

I fall silent for a moment and close my eyes. Her whisper is soft, "So why did you never come home? After they got married I mean."

I suck in a breath; waiting to think of the right way to answer. "I guess it never really felt like home."

She asks, "Was it because of us? When we moved in was it just too uncomfortable for you?"

I open my eyes. "What? No! God no it was nothing like that….just, do you know anything about my Mom?"

She shakes her head, so I continue. "My mom she, well she was the type of person that if she was going to do something, or be something, she did it to the fullest. There was no in between. Foot to the floorboard, and no speed limits, no stops, and no horizons. When she was happy or affectionate that was great, but when I was really young she was rarely happy. I have actually never met a more miserable or angry human being. They fought all the time my parents. It almost seemed like the fighting was on outlet for her, until that wasn't enough and she found a new one, me."

"Peeta….."

I shake my head. "It was rarely physical. Though sometimes I wished for it to be. A bruise on the cheek stops stinging. Words though, they cut deeper and heal slower, weigh heavier, until eventually they sink you. It went on for several years with only me in the middle. My brothers, they were already gone. I'm the late miracle baby that no one really wanted. That's why I didn't come back. It wasn't a home for me. Just the place I learned to bake bread, take a smack to the cheek, and play as the pawn in the marriage of two unhappy people. Being an unwilling piece in such a fucking twisted game gets old pretty fast ya know?"

I close my eyes again, just our breathing filling the room.

Her sigh is soft, "I am so sorry Peeta."

I shrug. "It is what it is. The last few years after they divorced weren't so bad, and I like being here on my own."

I smile at her. "The company is nice though. You're a good listener."

She smiles before burying her face in her arms, her voice is muffled and sleepy. "Having someone want me to listen is new, so yeah this is nice."

Her sighs become even spaced and soft and I know she's fallen asleep. I want to pick her up and carry her to bed. To rub the hair from her face and watch her soft exhales push past her full lips. I don't though. I know it's wrong yet I can't trust my hands. I'm afraid if I touch her skin I won't be able to stop. Grabbing a blanket from the couch I drape it across her small form.

I whisper into the still room. "Goodnight Katniss."

_**Day Twelve**_

I hold her for the first time. When I walk through the door the lights are out and I startle to see her curled into the chair. Her skin is pale, eyes red rimmed and swollen in pain.

"Katniss…..what….are you all right?" My words are a rush of air, my steps across the room quick as I reach her.

Her answer is a sob. An agonizing sound coming from deep inside her chest. Kneeling in front of her I slide her hand into mine and squeeze. I think we sit this way for over an hour. Her curled into herself fighting against her tears, that run in streams down her cheeks, before puddling against our entwined hands.

With my legs asleep, and our skin salty and dry she begins to talk, she talks for the next two hours, until we move to the couch, our hands still clasped and her head against my shoulder.

Six years ago today her father died. A tragic accident they said. One moment her world was whole, and one breath later it shattered. She tells me how her mother drifted away. One breath at a time she left her oldest daughter to bloody her hands trying to pick up the pieces. How scared she is that it will happen again. She has to finish school so she can take care of her sister. Be the mother where hers had failed.

She talks until her voice is as raw and as aching as my heart. I'm enthralled by her story, her strength, this beautiful determination she has. I feel her falling asleep against my side, but when I go to stand her fingers tighten and she lies on my chest.

Her whisper is warm through the cotton of my shirt, "Please stay with me."

Wrapping my arm around her, I lean back counting her breathes. Inside my head I answer, "Always." Because where the hell else can I go? No matter how wrong, or how right, this girl has captured my heart.

I'm a goner.

_**Day Eighteen**_

Walking out of my room I can feel her eyes on me. All the time they are on me, like gray fire singing my skin, heating the blood in my veins until it boils and I want to pound my fists into the wall just too keep from touching her.

I don't know what kind of sick game fate is fucking playing with me. That this girl, the only one off limits, is who I'm falling for. I'm crashing and burning from the inside out. Fuck I'm completely captivated by her. I can't escape. She's seeping deeper beneath my skin every damn day and I already know there is no getting her out.

I've got to get out of here. Every time I look up her eyes are there. Her smile is there. I can smell her fucking skin and it's taunting me. I feel her smoky voice travel along my spine, and if I close my eyes I swear I can hear her moan as I slide inside of her.

Christ she has to stop biting her lip when she reads, licking them and sighing when she eats, pursing them before she laughs or I'm going to dive across this fucking couch and take them with my teeth.

She looks up from her book and smiles, stretches her back, her tank top rides up showing a strip of skin that should be innocent, it should mean nothing. But it's just enough to push me over the edge. My blood is pounding in my ears, pooling beneath my waist. I need to get the fuck out, I need to drive, I just need to fucking breathe. I stand up and in two strides grab my keys.

Looking over my shoulder I ignore the confusion that drifts across her face, the worry there, before I shout, "I'm going out…!"

_**Day Twenty**_

The apartment is empty when I walk in. Her bedroom door closed. The weight of the last two days arches tight across my shoulders and seeps out of my pores, mixing with the scent of smoke, whiskey, and perfume. Seems a two day bender is not the way to go. You just wake up in the same place, with a hangover and still no fucking direction.

I pull my clothes off a piece at a time; my body feels lighter as I scrub the night from my skin. I couldn't do it. I thought friends, alcohol, and flirting with women would be the winning cocktail to wash her from my mind, flush her from my heart. I was wrong.

Stepping into sweat pants, I walk to the kitchen for water. Standing in front of the cool air I feel her before I hear her. When I turn she's leaning against the counter, hair wild from sleep, wearing some tiny excuse for shorts and an old t-shirt. Her scowl is back and there is lightening in her eyes.

She's biting her cheek. In a low voice she asks. "Where were you?"

I chug the water, let the cold slide down my throat without looking at her.

"I told you I was going out, I needed to do something besides hang around here. It was feeling like a prison." My voice is soft, cold.

She pulls back like my words physically lashed against her skin. "I'm sorry you felt so trapped. But you were gone for two fucking days Peeta! Two days! You didn't call me or text, you didn't answer my calls. I almost called your father because I didn't know if you were dead somewhere, and I don't have a car so I couldn't even leave if I thought something was really wrong. I have been so fucking scared dammit and all you can say is you needed to go out?!"

My jaw tenses in irritation. I'm filled with something irrational and I don't know what it is. I can't stomach the guilt I feel with each word she throws like a weapon. I want to lash out. Use my own words against her like armor because if I don't the truth might come out. I let it build ready to aim and let my words fly when she does something I'm not prepared for.

Tears….hot angry tears begin to stream from her eyes. They darken her eyelashes, run down her cheeks, before disappearing beneath her chin. They knock the wind out of me. My anger and fight dissolve leaving me so tired and defeated I just want to bury my face in her waist and have her hold me against her warmth.

I reach for her, "Katniss….."

She hits my hand out of the way. "Don't touch me! Don't fucking touch me! I get it okay! I do. I'm a burden, and I'm cold and closed off and hard to deal with. You think I don't fucking know that? You think I haven't felt like that every damn day since my Dad didn't come home? Well, I have to be. I cannot fucking afford to open up and feel for anyone else, let anyone else in because when you do that…when you do that you can break. There is nothing left inside me for you to break Peeta, and if there is I won't let you. So don't touch me to try and make you feel better. I shouldn't have let myself believe…feel…..it doesn't matter in a week I'm gone. You won't have to listen to me, cook for me; I won't be here to make you feel like a god damn prisoner in your own home."

Her shuddering breaths are the only sounds in the dim room. Her body shakes with them. I'm unable to move, to think. I just stand flexing my hands at my sides.

My voice sounds rough to my ears, "Is that what you think? You think I left because I couldn't stand being around you?"

She lifts her chin and looks so defiant and gorgeous I forget myself and want to smile.

I shake my head at her. "You're right….and wrong….I left because I couldn't stand to be around you. To be near you for another fucking second and trust myself not to touch you."

I watch those gorgeous eyes widen, her mouth open but no words pour out.

I continue, "Katniss from the moment I opened that door, saw you standing framed by the sun. I can't get you out of my mind, and it has only gotten worse. I am a fucking prisoner. To my body, my thoughts, my heart ...to you. All I can think of is what your sigh will sound like against my mouth, how your skin will feel beneath my palms, what it tastes like if I lick my way down your spine. But I fight it, I fight it, and I am so damn tired Katniss."

"You are the first person I have ever met in my fucking life that really hears me when I talk, you make me work for a smile, and you want to protect me as much as I want to protect you."

She's frozen in place, in shock. I'm probably scaring the shit out of her, but I can't stop now.

I throw my head back, my laugh short and bitter. "You know the best part? This…..it's not allowed. Divorce or not for three years you were my step sister! It doesn't matter that I didn't know you, that it's paper not blood, that we didn't grow up together, no matter what from the outside it's fucked up! It's so damn fucked up but I still can't help it!"

Her whisper is shaky. So soft I almost don't hear it. "Stop trying."

I look at her. "What?"

She steps closer, once, twice, until her toes brush mine. She looks into my eyes. "Stop trying Peeta. It's fucked up. It's fucked up, and I don't care. I want you."

My hands are shaking as they run through the waves of my hair. "Katniss…."

Her small hand reaches out until it runs up the back of my neck, she scratches her nails along my scalp. The sound I make is low, a moan or a whine and I can't breathe.

I know my eyes are desperate. I feel crazy. I need her to stop touching me.

She whispers, "Find out. My sighs, my skin…my spine. Please."

"Katniss you have to stop. I need to go." I close my eyes because she's so close I can feel her breath against my skin. I'm dizzy from the heat of her. Tears are hot behind my eyes, and I dig my nails into my palms so hard that the pain is sharp.

My voice reaches and strains, "Please Katniss...just let me go."

When I open my eyes she is staring at me. Hers are dark, pupils fat. Her mouth quivers, "I can't."

It's this that breaks me. My hands dig into her hips while hers bury themselves in my hair. I crush her lips against mine, swallowing the sounds she makes down my throat. I'm starving for the taste of her tongue, the sweetness of her mouth. Each bite of her lips makes me curse.

Each noise she makes races along my limbs, every desperate whimper met by my thrusts against her hips, and my moans into her mouth. I lick along her teeth, her tongue chases mine along the soft inside of my cheek. Our breaths are hot desperate puffs of air, panting and wanting and wild. She laughs against my lips when I lift her by the hips and carry her to the sofa pulling her onto my lap without ever pulling away.

I'm hard between her thighs and she's taking advantage of it. Jesus if she keeps grinding like this I'm going to come in my pants like a teenager.

I pull back and rest my head against hers. "You are so god damn beautiful."

She smiles and my heart turns over. Leaning into my ear she whispers, "Always with the pretty words. Now put your fucking hands on me Peeta."

She chases her words with her tongue and my hips rise off the couch on a moan. Fuck yes. Her mouth tastes sweet, untamed, and wild. Her pulse pounds beneath my tongue. My teeth are grazing the skin of her throat down to her shoulder. She leans away from me and arches her back, pulls her shirt over her head. I moan out loud and lean against her collarbone.

Running my bottom lip along her warm skin I whisper, "Jesus…..no bra…..wasn't prepared."

Her laugh is light, and I look up at her with a smile. Skimming my fingers up her sides makes her shiver. The roll of muscles beneath her waist is mesmerizing. The sway of her breasts…. perfect. I weigh them in my hands and she sighs. When I lean forward and pull one between my lips she keens. Her sounds set me off.

I'm relentlessly tugging, and flicking with my tongue, pulling with my fingers and teeth. Her hands are pulling my hair, holding me to her while she almost desperately writhes against my lap. I reach around and with handfuls of her ass, I grind her along where I'm hot and hard beneath my pants.

"Peeta…..."It's a whimper, soft and needy.

I grunt around her nipple. "Say it again please."

"Peeta….Peeta, please."

Her head is arched back, breasts pushed forward, her gorgeous throat exposed.

Standing up, I flip us around and lay her against the dark cushions. Her hair fans out, her lips are swollen and she's so beautiful that I physically ache.

I look into her eyes. "Are you sure?"

"God yes." She nods and bites her full lip reaching for the band of my pants. They are tented and I hiss when she slides them down my waist. The relief of no constrictions and knowing her hand is so close to where all the blood in my body is pulsing makes me light headed. She goes to wrap her hand around me and I stop her.

"I can't….you…..it's just too much."

I stand and grab my wallet from the side table. My fingers won't cooperate before finally finding the foil edge of a condom. I feel her eyes on me as I slide it slowly along my length. She licks her lips and I twitch in my hand.

"Fuck Katniss your mouth drives me crazy."

I lean forward and kiss her lips, down her chest, and stomach stopping where dusky skin meets cotton. Hooking my thumbs beneath the pale material I slowly pull her panties down her legs. She's so wet that I can see it. She's perfect, and I rest my head against her hip trying to catch my breath. Blow lightly across her heat, making her shudder.

Circling her hip with my tongue, I breathe against her skin. "I want to taste you so fucking bad. But I don't think I'd survive it."

Shaking her head she pulls me up to her mouth, opens her thighs to settle me between them. I can feel the slick heat of her inches away. Our kisses slow until we are just breathing into each other and I slide into her an inch at a time. She's so tight and wet, she's amazing. When our hips are flush I go still. She arches against me and I groan.

I start slow, each thrust pushing her up against the cushions, each snap of my hips making her cling to me and whine into my ear. Sweat beads between my shoulders and runs down my neck. The smell of her skin, the feel of her gripping me tight inside her is too much. I'm pounding faster, our skin slapping in the room, heat pools in my stomach, and I know I'm close. I reach between us, fingers slick until I feel her clit pulse beneath my touch. She moans, arches, and locks her feet around me. When she comes her nails dig into my shoulders, her head is thrown back and she goes completely silent. Her walls bearing down on me make my eyes rolls back and I let go. Like lightening from my spine up through my chest I release hot and hard.

When I come down, and am able to breathe and function again her face is inches from mine. Her hair is dark with sweat and a wide satisfied smile lights across her mouth. I can't help but grin back because that was amazing, and because what I see shining out of those smoky eyes is real. The circumstances of how we got here just don't matter. What matters is she's here…..with me, and for us it seems to make sense.

We need each other. We protect each other. We save each other. I think somehow this would have happened anyway. I'm captivated, a prisoner to this, and I'm okay with it.


End file.
